Hot Topics:

Hard-line Islamists rally in Pakistani capital

The Associated Press

Updated:
01/04/2014 04:24:46 AM EST

ISLAMABAD—A Pakistani police official says more than 2,000 Islamists from a hard-line Sunni group have rallied in Islamabad to condemn the killing of two of their clerics, gunned down in an apparent sectarian attack the previous day.

Police official Mohammed Shami says the protesters also held a funeral ceremony for the two on a street near the Parliament building on Saturday. Afterward, the clerics' bodies were taken to a nearby graveyard for burial.

Shami says gunmen ambushed and killed the clerics on Friday.

The two were from the Ahle Sunnat Waljamaat group, which is linked to the outlawed Sipah-e-Sahaba extremist group that has been accused of killing thousands of Shiites in recent years.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack but the protesters blamed Pakistan's minority Shiites for it.